Europe has a long history of shooting itself in the foot with respect to copyright. No need to blame the EU in this case. Relatively short copyrights are good

Europe has a long history of shooting itself in the foot with respect to copyright. No need to blame the EU in this case. Relatively short copyrights are good for culture. You need a common understanding to build upon to produce new works. A long time ago, Europe moved to have lifetime-plus copyright terms. Its not all bad though. For a long time, the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted material was expensive. Digital media and the internet mostly solved those issues. Long copyright terms remain a problem, but there are plenty of opportunities for smaller parties to distribute content.